Card Game is pleased to welcome Keith Thomerson, a former football coach, to its ranks as the University of Louisville football team enters its first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Keith went on to other things after a two-year coaching stint  at Tuslaw (Ohio) High School, focusing on technical writing, software design and implementation, training and sales. 

By Keith Thomerson

I started playing football in the fourth grade, learning early on that some coaches are great teachers and some only know how to yell. The ones that took the time to answer my numerous questions and explain the finer points of the game were my football mentors. I was honored to be selected as the best defensive tackle in our league my senior year of high school.

Keith Thomerson
Keith Thomerson

The first school inviting me for a visit was the University of West Virginia. I stayed in a great hotel room and had 50-yard line seats with my chaperone, a former professional football player. After the game I was invited to the locker room to meet the coaches and players.

The head coach walked by and slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Son, you are too short, too small, and too slow.” I heard the same short conversation four more times. The fifth and last visit the coaches offered me a preferred walk-on position, explaining they had already given out their allotted scholarships.

I asked myself, How could this be? I have always been first team and now I am being told I am number 26 on the list. I decided football was not in my future. My dream was to play for a big school or not at all. I had better get a good education. I did.

Then how did I end up coaching football?

I am a graduate of the University of Rio Grande in Ohio. It is a private non-denominational liberal arts school with a reputation for turning out well-prepared teachers. A recruiter for Stark County Schools steered me to Tuslaw High School just outside Massillon.

After a 45-minute interview with the head football coach and a 30-second interview with the superintendent, I was hired as a varsity football coach. Wait just a minute there. No college football playing experience and you ended up coaching football?

I am an organizer. Organization comes easy and naturally. At one time I had  a four-drawer filing cabinet filled with drills and plays from coaches all across the country. Want film, just ask Keith, he will somehow get it. During my 45-minute interview I outlined how a practice should be organized. The head coach would ask me to do something and I would normally reply, It is already in progress or already done.

I coached football two years. Why did I leave something I loved? I was a little too intense. I would not accept anything but 100% loyalty and effort from the other coaches. I also realized moving around from town to town was a requirement. A former coach and good friend tried to get me to return to coaching for the next three years but I turned him down. I had discovered computers and working and writing about computers give me far more enjoyment. I am still, however, a student of the game.

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